More Android notes
A remarkable feature: “Settings → About phone → Battery use” claims to give a breakdown of energy use over the last period the phone was unplugged. It distinguishes between “Display”, “Cell standby”, “Android System”, and applications. Don't know how accurate it is.
Bluetooth keyboard driver experiences:- “BlueInput” by Teksoft does not work correctly for my Palm Bluetooth Keyboard; as others have reported, some punctuation keys do not work at all (and Shift-2 generates ", making me think that it was written for a different keyboard layout and not tested with US QWERTY).
- “BlueKeyboard JP” failed to connect to my keyboard - or rather, it immediately says “disconnected”. Also, the install permissions info says it reads GPS location, which makes no sense unless this is one of those ad-supported things, but it doesn't say that and I don’t remember whether it did show ads. Update: It works, but the keyboard must be discoverable. And it is ad-supported.
So I still don't have a keyboard driver. Perhaps I should look into writing one.
I need to learn about how file/application associations work so I can figure out who is at fault (file browser or viewer app) in my failing to open PDF and epub documents stashed on the SD card.
USB connection is done right: plugging into a computer does not interrupt usage at all, and if you want to mount the SD card then that's an easily-reached option; neither mandatory nor buried. (Well, it didn't; since system updates it now pops up the do-you-want-to-mount screen immediately, which you have to exit to continue with your previous activity.)
The force-Google-Account-to-Gmail thing became considerably less annoying once it occurred to me to find out that it let me change the From address of mail sent from the Gmail account. So my external identity is still kpreid@switchb.org, except in Google apps.
Nice bit of polish: “A system update has been downloaded, but your battery is too low to install it. Connect to charger first.” (phrasing from memory.)
I'm considering writing up a document like the Gadget Coverage List but with an emphasis on features × how to get them on Android rather than features × gadgets - so it would be a recommended apps list, among other things.